POV | Schnatter Should Explain Himself

Tom Jurich has been a treasure to Louisville, not just the university but the city. Since the late 90s, he’s done more to raise the national profile of our entire community than any other single person.

Tuesday, April 18th 2017, 9:58 am EDT

Updated:

Wednesday, April 19th 2017, 8:31 am EDT

Tom Jurich has been a treasure to Louisville, not just the university but the city. Since the late 90s, he’s done more to raise the national profile of our entire community than any other single person. But last week, U of L board member John Schnatter made some inflammatory comments about U of L’s athletic department leadership without backing any of it up.

Schnatter cannot just hurl a stink bomb into a crowded room and not have to explain himself. If he knows of some impropriety in the athletic department he needs to tell us what he knows immediately. But if he was just shooting his mouth off, then he needs to apologize immediately.

I know Tom, but we aren’t close friends. We golfed together once about 15 years ago. WDRB doesn’t televise any U of L games, so this isn’t about protecting broadcast rights. We have season tickets for basketball, but we pay full price for all of them and they aren’t especially great seats. So I’m not saying this to curry favor.

I am saying that Tom Jurich is, in fact, the best athletic director in the nation, and is one of U of L’s few world-class administrators. And those who support Tom Jurich and believe in the excellent work he’s doing, need to step up and say so publicly.